The present invention relates to methods for providing pricing for telecommunications services. In particular, the present invention relates to providing prices for telecommunications services over a computer network to corporate customers.
The telecommunications industry in recent times has undergone rapid and significant change. Advances in technology have led to enhanced and lower cost telephony services. Also, with passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the regulatory environment in the United States has loosened in an attempt to foster competition in the industry. The combination of these two occurrences has led to an unprecedented number of commercial phone services and carriers available to customers. The large number of carriers and rapidly advancing technology in combination have in turn resulted in an unprecedented level of competition in the telephony services market. Business clients in this market now must choose from a multitude of telephony services and vendors.
An important recent technological advancement that has intensified the pace of change is voice over internet protocol, or xe2x80x9cVoIPxe2x80x9d. VoIP, which is generally the ability to transmit voice over a data line in a digital format, offers substantial savings opportunities for corporate customers. For example, companies having a plurality of geographically remote locations that are connected by a company data network can now carry intra-company phone traffic over their data network, thereby avoiding long distance carrier charges. Greater detail regarding this technology is available in co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/356,287; filed Jul. 16, 1999. Using similar technology, companies may likewise realize significant savings on their reverse charge phone service by setting up points of presence in various regions and carrying the reverse charge service over a data network connecting the points of presence. Greater detail regarding this practice is available in co-pending U.S. Application filed Jan. 18, 2000 by Kohler, et al.
Rapidly advancing technology creating new services and offering generally lower telephone transmission costs have created a dynamic telecommunications services market. Quickly changing prices and wide varieties of service plans available to customers have become the norm in a highly competitive market. In order to successfully compete in this environment, telecommunications service vendors are required to quickly and frequently provide pricing proposals. To provide these proposals, vendors may be required to obtain and analyze large amounts of information. Telecommunications vendors have found it increasingly difficult to obtain the required information and to prepare a telecommunications services proposal based on this information in a timely and organized manner. Accordingly, there is an unresolved need for a method for providing pricing for telecommunications services.
It is an object of the invention to provide a method for providing telecommunications service pricing.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method for providing telecommunications service pricing over a computer network.
The present invention generally comprises a method for providing telecommunication service pricing to a corporate client over a computer network. The method comprises the steps of: querying the client to choose a client profile from a profile group; using the client profile to choose a telecommunications service questionnaire; presenting the questionnaire to the client over the network; obtaining a response to the questionnaire from the client over the network; using the response to determine telecommunications service pricing; and providing the telecommunications service pricing over the data network to the client.
In a preferred embodiment of the method of the invention, the client profile group comprises manufacturing, professional services, and retail services. It has been discovered that clients in any one of these profiles tend to have characteristics upon which telecommunications service pricing can be established that are common to that profile. That is, once a client profile is established, particular questions for the client can be asked through a tailored questionnaire to determine information on which to base service pricing. The questionnaire may be tailored to a greater degree depending on the particular service to be provided.
For instance, in a first example embodiment of the method of the invention the telecommunications services comprise providing intra-company telephony services over a data network. The data network may be an existing company proprietary network, a xe2x80x9cvirtual private networkxe2x80x9d created specifically to carry the company voice traffic, or it may be a worldwide computer network such as the internet. In this example embodiment, the questionnaire presented to the client, regardless of the client profile, requests at least the number of geographically remote locations that are connected to the data network. In a second example embodiment of the invention, the telecommunications services comprise reverse charge phone service, and the questionnaire, regardless of the client profile, requests a reverse charge call center location.
In a third example embodiment of the method of the invention the telecommunications service also comprise providing reverse charge phone service in digital format. In this particular embodiment, however, no client profile is provided, as it has been discovered that accurate pricing can be determined for reverse charge call service without determining a client profile. A questionnaire is presented which comprises at least a request for the location of a company reverse charge call center. A company phone bill is obtained which comprises at least reverse charge call records. A call traffic pattern is then developed from the phone bill which analyzes reverse charge calls made by region of origin. Pricing is then determined for the service using the call traffic pattern and the questionnaire response, which is then transmitted to the client.
In addition to the questionnaire, the method of the invention preferably further comprises obtaining a phone bill for a period of time from the customer. It has been discovered that a client phone bill can be used to effectively examine the client""s phone usage. The phone bill is preferably obtained over the data network in digital format. The method of the invention preferably further comprises developing a call traffic pattern from the phone bill, with the thus determined traffic pattern then used to determine a service price for the telecommunications service to be provided. The traffic pattern comprises an analysis of company telephone usage. Greater detail regarding call traffic patterns and determining pricing therefrom is presented in co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/432,521; filed Nov. 3, 1999; herein incorporated by reference.
The above brief description sets forth rather broadly the more important features of the present disclosure so that the detailed description that follows may be better understood, and so that the present contributions to the art may be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional features of the disclosure that will be described hereinafter which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto. In this respect, before explaining the several embodiments of the disclosure in detail, it is to be understood that the disclosure is not limited in its application to the details of the construction and the arrangements set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The present invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for description and not limitation.